Digital Media Buzz > Twitter in the Dollhouse: Rich Media Ad Features Real-Time Tweets

Twitter in the Dollhouse: Rich Media Ad Features Real-Time Tweets

By Ken Liebeskind

To promote the July 28 launch of “Dollhouse” Season One on Blu-Ray and DVD, Fox Home Entertainment is running rich media ads on three sci-fi sites that allow users to engage in Twitter conversations with the star of the show. And their comments are posted in the ad, which is an online first.

A few advertisers have posted their own Twitter comments into online ads, but this is the first time viewers have been able to tweet directly into the ad unit, according to Amanda Schroeder, director of marketing at EyeWonder, which served the ad.

The ad, which plays on scifi.com, ugo.com and craveonline.com until Aug. 3, is video rich with a :30 video clip playing at the start of the ad. It leads to a rollover bar that yields a Twitter app that invites viewers to “follow Eliza on Twitter” and “sign in to tweet and be a part of the conversation.” Eliza is Eliza Dushku, the actress who plays the main character, Echo, in the TV show. Dushku has a large following on Twitter, which is the draw for the ad.

“She has over 35,000 followers on Twitter, so we’re capitalizing on the existing audience and the existing channel we could feed into,” says Sara Francis, vice president and group account director at Moxie Interactive, Fox Home Entertainment’s digital agency. “We wanted to incorporate the response and interactivity to amplify our message.”

Viewers sign into Twitter, visit Eliza’s page and post comments, which are automatically posted into the ad unit on the right side of the page. Viewers can scroll down to read all the Twitter comments. The comments are prefaced by the viewer’s Twitter name. Moxie oversees the comments and selects which ones to post. EyeWonder put a filter into the app to catch profanity, Schroeder says.

Moxie used the Twitter app because Twitter is hot and Dushku has an audience there. It was also used to keep the ad fresh. “The ad only runs for two weeks and we wanted to make sure the content is always new, so with tweets coming in on a regular basis we can get new content into the banner,” Francis says.

There is no surcharge for the Twitter feed, except for production costs. “Twitter doesn’t increase the CPM, so it doesn’t cost any more to run it than a regular rich media ad,” she says. “Twitter has an open API so we were able to take Twitter code and install it in the ad,” Schroeder says. “We modified it to get it to work within the banner coding on our end.”

Francis said the Twitter functionality works well in the rich media ad unit, “because it allows people to participate with the content. They can comment on a video they see in the ad, which allows us to get their feedback and share the ad unit so it’s not a passive experience.”

The Twitter app is a strong example of the growth of social media elements in advertising. “Advertising in general is becoming more participatory with the explosion of social media,” Francis says. “Bringing social media tools into all kinds of ads will be a key to keeping consumers engaged.”